When I Was One-and-Twenty
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
Source: Father: An Anthology of Verse (EP Dutton & Company, 1931)
Maturity is not always indicated by the age, yet behavior and thought are of consideration. It is how people act and respond to the problems they face that shows how mature they are because not all people are able to overcome their hard time well. Sometimes they find difficulties and do not know what to do, of which requires them to learn better. In accordance to this issue, there might be many different criteria of labelling people’s maturity, however, we can at least mention three qualifications in considering whether a person is mature or not. In our opinion, being mature requires the attitude of being wise, the willingness to listen to other people’s advice, and the ability to learn a lesson from the past.
Being wise is a long process. We have to be able to choose and decide every single decision we make. We have to think first which one is more important, or in other words, make a good priority. In addition, knowing the first action that we have to perform is another point to notice. Most people believe that our ability to do such things shows whether we are wise or not. That is why, to be wise, indeed, does not happen instantly but it takes time for people to acquire it.
Nowadays’ generations do not really pay attention to older people’s advice. They no longer listen to parents’ advice because they think it is irrelevant to today’s lifestyle. They tend to grab any information without checking the truth. But in fact, the advice plays an important role to shape the maturity. Those who are not willing to accept other’s opinion or advice are considered selfish, showing that they are not mature yet. They think that they can solve their problems themselves and do not need one’s suggestion. As Housman wrote in his poem, “But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.”, it is totally hard to make youths listen to elder’s counselling.
Not all people can notice their mistake in the past and learn a lesson from it. They tend to make the same mistake unconsciously and cause a terrible remorse. According to Housman’s poem When I Was One-and-Twenty in line 13-14 of second stanza, when a teenager makes a wrong decision, she or he will get a plenty sighs and endless rue. It means that we should react accordingly to those mistakes in order to be better. Well, it is true, though, that humans cannot avoid making mistakes, but once we are able to learn from the mistakes and do a better one it is a step closer to be mature.
We can therefore conclude that being a mature person requires a lot of effort. There are at least three things that we should do: be wise, listen to other people’s advice, and be able to learn from the mistakes. It might not be easy to follow but it is worth trying for us in order to be mature because growing old is automatic but growing up is a choice.
Written in collaboration of Danik Lailatul Rohmah and Zuhrufi Latifah
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